The Holy

I remember it myself, riding in the big black car that would take us to our grandfather’s casket one last time. I remember looking out the window and wondering how all those people could be having their ordinary days when such a blow had been dealt to us: the man in whose house we lived gone, his protection gone, the shelter of his income gone and nothing for us to do but find a new place to live, our mom and us two kids in our falling-down socks and our funny haircuts.As I drove from one funeral to the other and in between got myself to the hospital for that  X-ray I have long been postponing, I noticed all the little ways that life goes forward. And yes at the funeral of John the firefighter the knees of my old friend buckled when saw me and she collapsed sobbing in her chair. And yes at the wake of Gene whose baseball team were state champs back in ‘45 and who got to try out for the Red Sox, the eyes of his children and grandchildren filled and refilled with tears as they stood all those  greeting the many who called.But all day the rain was gentle and the air was warm and the yellow leaves shone bright on the wet black asphalt. And when an old man next to me in the X-Ray waiting room asked for help because the leg supports on his wheelchair were hurting his calves three strangers leaped from their seats to help him. And always there is the Sacred in the Everyday and the Everyday in the Sacred and the braiding of the two brings a kind of  comfort... Even a strong sort of joy as when you turn a corner on a busy street and there before you is this young and mortal woman with the gorgeous deathless music spilling like a fountain from her throat.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjaN9hI9ZRc]